CLASS I. CEPHALOPODA: ORDER 1. DIBR ANCHI AT A. 



497 



THE POULPE OE EIGHT-ARMED CUTTLE-FISH. 



the jaws are imbedded, and by wbich they are worked, are extremely powerful ; the jaws are, 

 in fact, capable of stripping off the armor from crabs and lobsters, and of cutting up the flesh of 

 fishes. Within the mandibles is a fleshy tongue, invested with a papillose membrane of delicate 

 texture, and also armed with recurved horny papillae, so that the tongue by its vermiform action, 

 is easily enabled to transmit the food into the gullet, which passes through a ring in the cranial 

 cartilage, dilates into a spacious crop with glandular walls, whence a short canal leads to a strong, 

 muscular gizzard, lined with a leathery skin. Li this gizzard the food is ground to pulp. 



In addition to its other extraordinary endowments, the cuttle-fish is supplied with an ink- 

 bag enfolded in the mass of the liver, containing the substance called sepia, and formerly used, 

 it is said, by the Chinese, in making Indian-ink. The creature has the power of ejecting this 

 through its siphons placed on the left side of the abdomen, so as to render it an effectual means 

 of defense. Powerful as it is, however, for the destruction of various kinds of sea animals, it 

 has enemies superior in strength to itself, such as the grampus, the cachalot, &c. When its 

 quick eyes perceive one of these huge monsters approaching, it ejects a quantity of its inky fluid 

 into the water, which immediately spreads around into a dark cloud ; while the enemy is 

 floundering about, bewildered and astonished, in this murky fog, the nimble cuttle darts away 

 and conceals himself in the mud at the bottom, or the safe fissure of some neighboring rock. 



The use of this ink-battery as a means alike of defensive and offensive warfare, is evinced by 

 an anecdote of a British officer, who on a certain occasion, had gone ashore to cohect shells, hap- 

 pening to be attired in a pair of snow-white pantaloons. As he was walking about, he suddenly 

 came upon a cuttle-fish, snugly harbored in the recess of a rock. For a moment the two stared at 



Vol. II.— 63 



